Steven Johnson: Texas shows championship mentality in blowout win over Oklahoma
It took a little over a quarter, but once the floodgates opened, Texas dominated Oklahoma 34-3 in its annual Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl.
After falling behind 3-0, the Longhorns flipped a switch and turned a potentially stressful battle into another blowout victory. The No. 1 Longhorns showed why they have a case for already being the class of the SEC in their first season.
It’s not really about beating this version of Oklahoma, which was missing five of its starting receivers and had already made a mid-season quarterback switch, it was about the way Texas won.
The game started in nearly the same fashion it did last year with Quinn Ewers throwing an interception on his first attempt of the game. He threw an interception on his second attempt in 2023.
The Longhorns didn’t pick up a first down until the second quarter as Ewers was clearly rusty leading the offense after having missed the last two games with an abdominal strain.
It could’ve been a repeat of last year, with a much more talented Texas team allowing its mistakes to let Oklahoma hang around long enough to pull off an upset.
This version of the Longhorns refused to let it happen with a 34-0 run in the second quarter that put the game away. The decisive stretch featured everything that’s helped the Longhorns inch back to the top of the college football mountain.
“You get into games like this and there’s so much emotion involved,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “You can get distracted by the emotion, you can get distracted by the adversity. The first quarter was tough, we were a little off offensively. They got the lead, but I don’t think anybody panicked. That’s a sign of a really good team.”
With his quarterback struggling with rust and maybe confidence, Sarkisian dug deep into his play-calling with a steady dose of slick calls. Instead of attacking vertically, Sarkisian let Ewers build his confidence by finding his receivers underneath. Sark also found ways to get him out of the pocket to help Ewers combat the Oklahoma pass rush.
Ewers started the game just 3 of 6. Along with the interception, he also missed a potential touchdown with an ugly throw off his back foot. Once Sarkisian tweaked the game plan, Ewers completed 10 of his next 11 passes including a 44-yarder to five-star freshman Ryan Wingo.
Speaking of five-stars, Sark’s relentless work on the recruiting trail also flashed repeatedly during the run. Former five-star and Denton Ryan alum Anthony Hill forced a fumble that led to a Longhorns’ touchdown that made it 21-3.
Another former five-star Colin Simmons led the Longhorns with tackles for loss as the former Duncanville standout is well on his way to establishing himself as a premiere edge rusher.
The offensive line, bolstered by Kelvin Banks Jr., wore Oklahoma down in the second quarter with 113 yards on the ground as Texas running backs averaged more than 12 yards per carry.
Texas doesn’t just look like an SEC team, they look like the great SEC teams we’ve come accustomed to seeing making deep playoff runs. The speed, the physicality and skill are easy to see, but Texas showed a different type of mental fortitude on Saturday by not allowing the emotions of the rivalry game or the slow start bog the team down.
Texas didn’t play anywhere close to its A-game, but against a top-25 opponent, the Longhorns looked like a team in a completely different class. At the midway point of the season, the Longhorns are the best team in the SEC.
That wouldn’t have been crazy to predict in the preseason, but just how big is the gap between Texas and the rest of the league?
Alabama was upset by Vanderbilt and almost fell to South Carolina. Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU and Tennessee have already suffered losses and and each has some type of question marks on at least one side of the ball.
In a year that seems devoid of great teams, the Longhorns’ latest blowout put Texas in a different tier than even Georgia and Alabama. The winner of Oregon-Ohio State will likely join Texas as the consensus favorites, but regardless of that outcome there hasn’t been a team as consistently impressive as the Longhorns.
“Through the first half of the season, you won’t see a lot of teams that are playing as well in all three phases as they have,” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said. “They’ve got a good team, and they’re good in the right places. They’ve got a good quarterback, a good offensive line, they’ve got explosive playmakers. They’ve got good players.”
There’s more football left to play, especially with Texas’ trip to Georgia looming, but at this point of the season it’s clear Texas has all the ingredients needed for a championship. Now it’s time for the program to show it can finish.
This story was originally published October 12, 2024 at 7:36 PM.
